Would you tour a slum?

March 31, 2007

Dharavi, dubbed the largest slum in Asia, is perched between two rail lines on 432 acres in Mumbai, the city in India formerly known as Bombay. It is home to about a million poor people. Smithsonian magazine once wrote it has "only one toilet for every 1,440 people. It is a vision of urban hell."

Not the place you'd figure to take your next vacation. Yet a travel company is offering tours of Dharavi. Cost: about $7.

If you find yourself in India, take the tour. It must be fascinating.

Dharavi is a slum. But it is also home to an estimated $665 million in economic activity each year. Entrepreneurs churn out everything from clay pots to the crispy lentil snacks known as papadum. Plastic is recycled, tin is refashioned and soap flakes are reconstituted into usable bars.

There is a fascinating tussle over gentrification there. The local government, desperate to get its hands on the real estate Dharavi occupies, is trying to persuade longtime dwellers to turn over their land in exchange for 225-square-foot apartments in high-rise condo towers it proposes to build.

But the government hasn't explained how it will replace the jobs that would be lost when Dharavi's 10,000 small-business enterprises are displaced. Many of the residents who own modest homes and rely on Dharavi commerce for their livelihood are balking at the deal. They may live in a squalid slum, but they're not automatically buying into the government's clearance project. The tours of Dharavi have tapped into this controversy. They're bringing some attention to the test of wills between the government and Dharavi residents.

No doubt, the tour proprietors have an interest in convincing tourists that they're not paying $7 for some perverse attraction -- come see how the poor people live. So the proprietors have pledged that 80 percent of profits will go to non-governmental organizations that work in the slum. Yes, there is still an uneasy sense of voyeurism in this. But there is also a story to see and to tell in Dharavi. Better to have the world see it firsthand than for it to be forgotten.

So if you happen to be in Mumbai, shell out the seven bucks and keep your eyes open.